Burning Paradise Read online

  Or not even a lie. If Ethan and Werner Beck were right, the monster operated by hive logic. Its verbalizations were neither knowingly true nor knowingly false. Ethan had explained this to her long ago: Hive insects— ants, for instance— operated according to a few simple rules, written on their genetics by evolution over the course of millions of years. They did amazing things: built cities in the soil, scavenged for food with startling efficiency. But no ant ever "decided" to do any of these things. Ants didn't plot strategy, and there was no board of directors in the hive. There was no conscious mind at work— there was no mind at all, only chemistry and environmental triggers. A cascade of such interactions produced complex behavior. But only the behavior was complex. The rules themselves, and the beings that enacted them, were relatively simple.

  It was the same way with the hypercolony. It was a sort of nest or hive that had enveloped the entire planet. Its smallest component parts were the spherules of rock and organic matter Ethan had learned to cultivate. As small as they were, the spherules were capable of generating and receiving impulses over a broad band of radio frequencies. They were also capable, Ethan said, of performing enormously elaborate calculations. (Correspondence Society people talked about "binary code" and "quantum- scale computation," but Nerissa understood none of that; the only computers she had ever dealt with were the ponderous card- reading machines the utility companies used to generate her monthly bills; she took Ethan's claim at face value.)

  The spherules weren't, in any plausible sense, individually intelligent. Like ants, they followed rules but didn't write them. Like ants, they exchanged signals and responded in programmed ways to environmental cues. What made the hypercolony remarkable was its collective power to manipulate electronic signals and mimic human beings. Mindless as it was, it could somehow generate a sim like Winston Bayliss and pass it off as human. But when Bayliss said the word "I," it was a noise that meant nothing. There was no "I" inside the monster. There was no one home. There was only the operation of a relentless, empty arithmetic.

  She took a step closer to the chair. She could see where Ethan had shot the monster in the leg. He had bandaged the wound, either to keep the mess off the floor or to keep the creature from dying of blood loss. The bandage, improvised from a hand towel and a strip of duct tape, leaked viscous beads of red and green matter. The rotting- hay smell of it hovered cloyingly in the still air of the cellar.

  She realized she was avoiding eye contact with the thing. That was cowardly, and the simulacrum would probably sense her fear and try to manipulate it. She refused to offer it even that slender advantage. She steeled herself and stared it in the face. Its eyes were brown and moist, its eyelashes almost femininely long. It returned her gaze unblinkingly. "Hello, Mrs. Iverson," it said.

  She was shocked despite her expectations. She swallowed her nausea and said, "How do you know me?" Not because she expected a truthful answer but because she wanted to hear what the monster would say.

  "The hypercolony knows you. I share some of that knowledge."

  Its voice was a mild, reedy tenor. In itself, that wasn't surprising. The parts of the monster that produced speech were all authentically human— throat, lungs, vocal cords.

  "You are the hypercolony, isn't that correct?"

  "I understand why you believe that, but no. That's what I came here to explain."

  She shrugged. "Say what you want to say." Ethan stood beside her with the pistol in his hand. The simulacrum licked its lips.

  "Most of what the Correspondence Society deduced about the hypercolony is true. It's a living thing. Its origins are ancient and incompletely remembered, but it has spread over vast distances, star to star. Its cycle of life is very long. It identifies and engulfs biologically active planets on which tool- making cultures might emerge. If such a culture does emerge, the hypercolony then exploits it for its own ends. Under ideal circumstances the relationship is beneficial to both parties."

  "Is it?"

  "Once such a culture begins to generate electronic communication, the hypercolony intervenes to foster certain outcomes. Peace as opposed to war, for example. In that way the relationship becomes fully symbiotic. The adopted species is freed from the consequences of its own bellicosity, while prosperity becomes generalized and formerly hostile tribes or nations grow mutually interdependent. Useful technologies then arise naturally and efficiently, and the hypercolony exploits these technologies."

  "Exploits them for what purpose?"

  "Reproducing itself," the monster said.

  Symbiosis, she thought. In this context, the word was an obscenity. She had seen how that alleged mutual benefit actually worked.

  It was Nerissa who had discovered the bodies of her sister and brother- in- law back in the autumn of '07. She remembered the front door of their small Forest Park home standing ajar. She remembered the bullet holes in the floral living- room wallpaper Evelyn had loved (and Nerissa had hated: they had conducted countless amiable arguments over it). She remembered the sour, coppery smell of blood, thick enough to taste, and she remembered the blood spattered on her sister's collection of Hummel figurines, the porcelain milk maids and shepherd boys smiling through crimson masks.

  Evelyn, whom Nerissa had always called Evie, had been shot twice through the torso and once through the head. She hadn't had time to get up from the sofa. Her husband Bob lay on the floor a few feet in front of her. He had also been shot through the body and had received a final killing shot to the head. Both their faces had been unspeakably distorted by their wounds.

  It was a Wednesday afternoon, just past four o'clock. Nerissa had been trying to get in touch with her younger sister since noon and had finally decided to drive to Forest Park in hopes of catching her at home. She wanted to tell Evie about the disturbing telephone call she had received from Ethan, about a wave of killings running through the Correspondence Society, a wild claim but one which the TV news seemed to confirm. Bob Stoddart, Nerissa's brother- in- law, was a longtime Society member and a friend of Ethan's. It was Ethan and Nerissa who had introduced Bob to Evie. As she averted her eyes from their bodies Nerissa found her thoughts drifting back to the time some fifteen years earlier when she had been engaged to Ethan and Evie had been dating Bob . . . how she and Evie had laughed about these unlikely beaus they had somehow acquired, an entomologist and a mathematician (of all things), smart and funny but so often helpless about clothes or manners. Evie could no longer laugh, however, because a bullet had passed through her upper lip on its way through her skull. So Nerissa willed her attention back to the Hummel figurines, piebald with blood. She knew she ought to call the police, and she tried to focus on that task. She would call them from the kitchen telephone, she decided, because the phone on the end table next to the sofa, although it was closer, was clotted with Evie's brain matter. She would do that as soon as she could get her legs to work properly. Until then she leaned against the wall and gazed at Evie's Hummels. Evie had worked in advertising, and something about these figurines had appealed to her, not in spite of but because of their kitschiness: the Merry Wanderer, now lapped by a lake of blood; the Apple Tree Boy, the same color as his apples . . .

  She almost screamed when she heard footsteps at the door. They've come back, was her first panicked thought. But no. It wasn't the killers. A small voice called out, "Hello?"

  Cassie.

  Oh, God. Cassie.

  Nerissa found her legs and turned. Of course, Cassie had come home. And Thomas . . . Thomas must be upstairs in his crib, must have slept through the murders or fallen asleep after the gunshots, or was he (no, this was unthinkable) also dead? But Cassie at twelve was old enough to walk the several blocks from Forest Park Elementary by herself. Cassie was an orphan but didn't know it yet. And she must not be allowed to find out, not this way, not by discovering her parents lying in the antic postures of their awful deaths. Hurry, Nerissa thought, keep her away, push her out the door if necessary—but the girl had already come too far. She was
standing in the tiled hall just outside the living room. She had dropped her book bag on the floor. She squinted into the darkened room as if it had filled with a searing light. Her mouth hung open, anticipating a scream that somehow never began.

  It had taken all of Nerissa's strength to pull the girl away, to kneel and to turn Cassie's head against her own shoulder, to accept the weight of her tears.

  That's your fucking symbiosis, she thought, staring at the human- shaped thing in Ethan's cellar.

  "Why are you admitting this?"

  "I'm not admitting anything," the monster said. "I'm not the entity that committed the murders of 2007, if that's what you're thinking. Mrs. Iverson, when you look at the night sky, does it seem lifeless to you? It isn't. Every star is an oasis in a desert— a warm place, rich with nutrients and complex chemistry. Many organisms compete for access to those riches. Their struggles are ethereal, protracted, and largely invisible to beings such as yourself. But the battles are as relentless and deadly as anything that happens in a forest or under the sea."

  "Even if that's true, so what?"

  The simulacrum glanced at Ethan, who was shifting his feet impatiently. "The organism of which I am a part has infected the hypercolony and taken control of its reproductive mechanisms."

  "What, like a virus or some kind of parasite?"

  "Approximately. But the process isn't finished. The hypercolony is still trying to reclaim itself. A struggle is underway."

  "We're wasting time," Ethan said.

  Nerissa was inclined to agree. All this cosmic Manichaeism wasn't getting them anywhere. "You said something about my niece, is that correct?"

  "Before long the outcome of the struggle will be decided. One side would like to exploit what remains of the Correspondence Society as a weapon against the other. Your niece is being manipulated. And she's not the only one."

  Nerissa leaned toward the sim and let her hatred show. "What, specifically, do you know about Cassie?"

  "I can help you protect her."

  "If you have anything to say—" Nerissa felt Ethan's hand on her shoulder. "What? And what's that god- awful noise?"

  "The alarm," Ethan said. "Someone's on the property."

  "Cut me loose," the monster said.

  Ethan told the monster to go to hell. But he didn't kill it, Nerissa noticed. He kept his pistol at his side and hurried up the stairs.

  9

  ON THE ROAD

  CASSIE TOOK THE LAST SHIFT BEHIND THE wheel and drove until she spotted a Designated State Campground marker where a side road cut into the piney wilderness north of Decatur, Illinois. There was a chain across the road and a wooden sign hanging from it—FACILITIES CLOSED SEPT 20 TO MAY 30— but Leo kept a bolt cutter in the trunk, so that wasn't a problem.

  The campground was a clearing in the forest dotted with stone- lined fire pits. The night was too chilly for open- air camping, but Beth spotted a cabin set back among the pines, and the padlock on the door yielded to a second application of Leo's bolt cutter. The cabin barely qualified as shelter— inside, they found a yellow mattress askew on an ancient box spring, a sofa pocked with cigarette burns, and patches of black mold like Rorschach blots on the bare board walls— but it kept out the wind.

  Cassie's first order of business was getting Thomas settled. She was increasingly worried about her brother. He had slept in the car, he was groggy now, and he closed his eyes as soon as she tucked him into his sleeping bag. His face was moist, his thatch of blond hair tangled and greasy— he needed a bath, badly, but there was no running water.

  Beth surprised Cassie by fetching a spare pillow from the car. "Here, use this," she said. "He'll be quieter if he's comfortable." As if she needed an excuse for an act of kindness. (And not even a plausible excuse: Thomas had been nothing but quiet for hours now.) Cassie thanked her and arranged the pillow under Thomas's head. He opened his eyes once, blinked, then sighed back to sleep.

  But it wasn't just a pillow Beth had fetched. She was also carrying a bottle of vodka, a picture of a bearded man in a fur hat on the label. "Where'd that come from?" Leo asked as she unscrewed the cap.

  "Bought it when we picked up supplies. Why not, right? Don't tell me you aren't interested." She offered him the bottle.

  He didn't take it. "Did the guy at the store card you? Because that's not such a good idea, showing ID if you don't have to."

  "No, he didn't fucking card me. You want some or not?"

  "This isn't a good time."

  "No? Really?" She shrugged. "More for me, then."

  Beth used an empty thermos to mix the vodka with the contents of a can of Coke. She sipped and grimaced, sipped and grimaced. Stupid waste of money, Cassie thought, but if it put Beth to sleep it might be worth it. But twenty minutes later Beth was pacing maniacally in the space between the mattress and the sofa, the floorboards creaking with every pass. When Leo suggested (with what Cassie thought was admirable restraint) that Beth might want to sit down and "give it a rest," Beth whirled to face him, staggered and aimed a finger at his chest. "Stop pretending you feel bad about what happened!"

  "Beth . . . come on. Seriously. Don't do this."

  "So sad and everything. All how could I have killed that guy? Get over it, Leo. You shot him in the leg so you wouldn't kill him. If he had some kind of medical condition, how were you supposed to know?"

  "Beth, stop."

  "Maybe you should have asked me to shoot him, if you didn't want to do it yourself. You're the one always telling us how dangerous everything is, how we can't take any chances, don't call home, don't get carded at the grocery store, watch out for strangers—"

  "You'll wake up Thomas."

  "I doubt it. He looks like he's fucking comatose. Seriously," turning to Cassie, "is your brother retarded or something? He barely talks."

  "He's scared," Cassie said. But not as scared as you are, she wanted to add. "I think we all need to get some sleep."

  "Fine. Go ahead."

  "You're not making it very easy."

  "If you're so fucking delicate, go sleep in the car."

  "Maybe that's what you should do," Leo told her. "Take your sleeping bag out to the car, get as pissed as you want, and in the morning we'll drive the rest of the way to my father's place. Your hangover is your own business."

  "What, are you tired of me now? You feel like fucking Cassie tonight? Is that it?"

  Cassie had seen Beth drunk before. Every survivor of '07 in Cassie's circle had a way of lifting a middle finger to the world, and Beth's had been her nasty style of drinking— drinking as if to punish herself and everyone around her. But now, even drunk, Beth seemed to realize she had overstepped a boundary. Before Leo could answer she squared her shoulders and said, "Fine, maybe I want to be alone." She reached for her jacket and bundled her sleeping bag under her arm, muttering to herself.

  Cassie watched from the cabin door as Leo followed Beth out to the car— ostensibly to make sure she was safe, more likely to see that she didn't damage anything. She harangued him from the enclosed space of the backseat while he put his key in the ignition and turned on the radio, maybe thinking a little music would distract her.

  But the radio wasn't playing music, it was announcing the local news. Cassie caught orphaned words and fractions of sentences. Body discovered, she heard. Wooded hillside. She stepped out into the chill of the night, pine duff crackling under her feet. "Turn that," Beth demanded loudly, but she never got to off, because Leo whirled and told her to shut the hell up. Drunk as she was, Beth fell into a startled silence.

  Cassie walked to the car as the newscaster finished the story: State police say they will be conducting an exhaustive investigation of this, Wattmount County's first homicide in almost fifteen years. Then the broadcast moved on to an item about a sawmill fire in some town Cassie had never heard of. Leo switched the radio off, scowling.

  I'm a criminal, Cassie thought. An accessory to murder, if not a murderer herself. We're all criminals. At any moment the som
nolent woods might fill with searchlights and bloodhounds. "Fuck!" Leo said.

  "What do we do?"

  He shrugged angrily. "Somebody might have seen the car, we have to make that assumption, but I doubt they'll have a description of us. So . . . I guess we ditch the car in the morning and hike someplace where we can catch a bus."

  "You still think your father can help us?"

  "If anyone can," Leo said.

  Cassie sat on the plank sill of the cabin door while Leo covered Beth with a sleeping bag and a couple of spare blankets. The night was cold but not cold enough to be dangerous, as long as she had some protection from the wind, and if Beth woke up achy and shivering come dawn, whose fault was that? Thomas was still asleep inside, but Cassie was too frightened even to think about bed. Eventually Leo came and sat beside her, dragging on a cigarette while she exhaled the tenuous fog of her own breath. A full moon had risen but it cast no light into the body of the forest around them.